Hollie Bone

Hundreds of people gathered at the railings of Harrogate's Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan centre to watch excitedly as The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall paid a visit to the town.

As the patrons of several cancer charities including Macmillan,Charles and Camilla spent part of the afternoon meeting patients and staff at the centre at Harrogate District Hospital.

The Royal couple leaving the Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre in Harrogate.

Making their way round the centre's different facilities, the couple visited patients in individual therapy rooms before meeting a cancer support group for victims of oesophageal cancer.

Joan Bardsley from near Ripon attends the group with her husband and carer, John, who were both thrilled when Prince Charles accepted their gift in the form of a pork pie.

Joan said: "They are from Appletons in Ripon and I know Prince Charles likes Appletons pies because he's been to Ripon before but we always have pies for our meeting so I brought an extra one today!

After Charles and Camilla had shared a joke with member of the support group, they moved on to meet people in the centre's treatment bays, where many receive chemotherapy treatment.

Eric Charnock was one such cancer patient who was currently undergoing chemotherapy when the prince stopped to chat with him.

He said: "We just chatted about general things, he was enquiring about the treatment I have, how long it takes to go through and just whether I'd dined well, which I always do!"

Eric, who claimed he is a big royalist, was excited by the visit which was to be the first time he had met any of the royal family, joking the only royal he'd ever met was footballer Joe Royle.

He said: "I was very excited to meet him, the atmosphere has been very giddy waiting for him to arrive. He can come back again."

Nurses on duty at the centre were equally eager to shake hands with the royal visitors, with some joking they had been practising their curtseys.

Centre Nurse Joey Phillipson said: "We've treated patients as we would normally and patients have been really excited and a lot of staff have been very excited. It certainly has brightened up our day we've been looking forward to it."

Centre Nurse Heather Priestley added: "Some patients have come for treatment early just to see him. I just think it's nice because we're a small centre in a small part of Yorkshire and I just think you would never think in a million years that he would come here so I just think that's lovely and we were quite surprised."

After nearly an hour at the centre, the couple bid the crowds farewell, shaking hands and chatting to those who had waited in the cold just to get a glance of the action.